What Bouser heard was an artillery rocket of the Multiple Launch Rocket System firing from our end of Fort Bragg back to one of two large impact areas. With a range of almost 20 miles, one MRLS rocket can deliver the equivalent firepower of an eight-gun artillery battery. A 12-rocket salvo equals the destructive power of nearly four battalions of conventional artillery. So effective was its fire during the Gulf War, captured Iraqis who survived the MRLS “steel rain” often pleaded with their captors “no more rockets!”
Residents of Southern Pines and eastern Moore County have long been accustomed to the sound of artillery and explosions from Fort Bragg. After all, the post began its history in 1919 as a field artillery center and has always been the home to numerous and varied artillery outfits. Today, six conventional “tube” artillery battalions and one MRLS battalion are stationed there. Marine artillerists from Camp Lejuene usually come to Bragg twice a year to use the Army’s larger range area. North Carolina Army National Guard artillery units often train during weekends.
With all the shooting, rare is the week that Fort Bragg Range Control does not get a complaint about training noise. Pictures knocked off walls or loss of sleep are the more common gripes. The number of complaints jumps when live fire training coincides with thick, low clouds, which tend to reflect the booms. With patient self-control, the Range Control operators explain to the complainers why training has to go on. Common courtesy and neighborly respect keep them from telling the complainers what they really want to say: “Fort Bragg was here long before your house was ever built,” or “I’ll bet your real estate agent never told you about this!”
Since World War II, the inventory of training sounds at Fort Bragg expanded to include other weapons and low flying aircraft. Southern Pines residents who live on the southeastern side of town near Indiana Avenue and Fort Bragg Road often hear the sound of small arms through the woods. This noise comes from the Aberdeen Training Facility, an Army Special Operations compound often used by soldiers going through their final preparations for deployment. It is a safe bet that some of the Army Special Forces troops in Afghanistan today went through the facility as a validation check on their way to combat.
Everybody in town has been treated to low-flying transport planes at one time or another. Fort Bragg is the home of the Airborne, the base for the Army’s only airborne corps and division as well as the Green Berets of the Special Forces. Last year, more than 103,000 parachute jumps were made onto Fort Bragg drop zones.
The closest drop zone to Southern Pines is Holland DZ, which has been closed for the past two years. Around the hard-packed earth runway that marks the center of Holland DZ, contractors have built a mock airfield complex complete with control tower, passenger terminal, hangers and other structures –– just the thing that airborne infantry and Army Rangers need to practice airfield assaults and seizures. The project is scheduled for completion soon.
When Holland DZ is reopened for training, probably by mid-August, Southern Pines can be sure of a resumption of overflights at night, the preferred time for parachute assaults. When you hear a roaring flight of blacked-out C-17s making the right-turn exit from Holland over Southern Pines, you can be certain that several hundred paratroopers have jumped into the darkness only moments before.
Then there are the helicopters. Southern Pines is pretty much spared the noise of beating rotors. Standard helicopter routes on Fort Bragg follow the paved roads around the post’s two major target areas, or impact zones, well away from Southern Pines residential areas. But when a large exercise takes place at Camp Mackall, helicopters may routinely fly over the town at a low level, briefly disturbing the peace and perhaps scaring a few cows and horses on Youngs Road.
Hard training goes on year-round at Fort Bragg. Through summer heat and humidity or freezing rain, sleet or snow, soldiers live and work in the pine woods practicing their profession. In the worst weather, helicopters and aircraft may be grounded, but training goes on for the ground troops. It has to be this way. Combat does not wait for blue skies. Although training noise may briefly disturb our community’s peace and quiet, I can live with it.
Every time you hear an explosion or a low-flying plane in the dead of night, you know that soldiers are out there, often in less than ideal conditions, training for a war we hope the nation never has to fight.
As the expression goes about training noise, it’s “the sound of freedom.” For citizens in Southern Pines and eastern Moore County, accept the noise as your personal sacrifice for national security.
